AG cracks down on wage robbers

Gary King aims at prosecuting in criminal courts

ALBUQUERQUE >> One pack of thieves has never been prosecuted in New Mexico's criminal courts.

State Attorney General Gary King identified these lawbreakers as bosses who either underpay or refuse to pay employees.

Wage theft is a pervasive crime in New Mexico, King said Thursday during a news conference with academic researchers and the leaders of an immigrant organization.

Andrew Schrank, an associate professor of sociology at the University of New Mexico, unveiled a study he co-authored on exploitation of workers. It found that employers in the state steal wages from at least one in four Mexican immigrants. Schrank said the statistics were based on interviews last year with 210 workers.

Victims of wage theft were not only people without proof of immigration status.

Almost 22 percent of employees who were legally authorized to work in the United States said they too had been cheated on pay, Schrank said.

"Workers who suffer wage theft are also more likely to suffer verbal and physical abuse, forced overtime, denial of rest periods and the like," he said.

He characterized mistreatment of workers as systemic, not random.

"Given the prevalence of these abuses, it's safe to conclude that there are a lot of bad apples out there," Schrank said.

Advertisement

His findings, co-authored with Jessica Garrick, a doctoral student at the University of Michigan, were turned over to the immigrant group Somos Un Pueblo Unido.

Marcela Diaz, executive director of the organization, said reluctance by victims to make complaints or file police reports means that most cases of wage theft go unreported.

Schrank's study found that just 12 percent of workers who said they had been cheated on pay complained to someone in authority. And only a handful of them reported wage theft to a government agency, such as the attorney general or state Department of Workforce Solutions.

Diaz said workers were afraid of being fired or other forms of retaliation, even though the law is on their side.

Under the national labor relations act, "It doesn't matter if folks are documented or undocumented" in cases of wage theft, she said.

A similar standard can be used by New Mexico agencies, King said. His office, for instance, does not consider immigration status if someone is a crime victim.

One woman at the news conference said her husband was ordered to work off the clock by Squeaky Clean Car Wash in Santa Fe even after it had been sanctioned. The National Labor Relations Board ordered Squeaky Clean to reinstate six workers that it fired last year and pay them back wages.

The New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty said agricultural workers also were being exploited by wage thieves.

One woman working eight to nine hours a day picking green chile regularly received only $20 to $25, said Maria Martinez Sanchez, an attorney with the center.

She said her organization last year surveyed 60 dairy workers and 193 field hands on chile and onion farms. Sixty-seven percent said they had been shorted on wages.

Sanchez said some of the state's most famous agricultural exports were "picked and produced on the backs of people who were not paid."

Workers are not the sole victims in cases of wage theft.

When an employer cheats an employee, the state loses tax dollars and businesses that pay their workers fairly are put at a competitive disadvantage, King said.

One reason that Diaz and others want to shine public attention on wage theft is that people feel helpless when facing corporate goliaths who control their pay. The daily reality is that workers, documented or not, are afraid of losing a job if they complain.

Diaz said Somos Un Pueblo Unido encourages workers to band together and collectively file complaints. Strength in numbers makes it harder for retaliation to occur, she said.

Nobody in New Mexico has been prosecuted criminally for the misdemeanor of wage theft, King said. Administrative cases are easier to prove and rectify, but district attorneys could file criminal charges if they find a model case, he said.

The New Mexico Legislature in 2009 strengthened state laws against wage theft.

Changes included increasing penalties from double to treble damages and building in protections for whistleblowers.

A bill this year by state Rep. Phillip Archuleta, D-Las Cruces, was designed to expedite civil wage-theft cases in magistrate and district courts.

Diaz said cases were taking six to 18 months to be heard. She said she hoped that Archuleta's bill would lead to court dates in 30 to 45 days.

Milan Simonich, Santa Fe Bureau chief of Texas-New Mexico Newspapers, can be reached at 505-820-6898. His blog is at nmcapitolreport.com.